How I got SCAMMED by fake sites via DeFi fake approvals

As a fan of highly risky and high-return sites, I was venturing into Yield Farms with their crazy returns and extreme risks. I explored virtually all networks searching for the best percentages to farm my tokens.

One day, I came across a promising USDT-ETH farm. I decided to create a strong pool and start farming. I made the purchase through Binance and sent it to my wallet. After waiting for a while, I checked on my phone and saw "withdraw confirmed." I thought things were going well, and I was ready to create my pool. However, when I opened my wallet, my USDT was nowhere to be found. I suspected that something was wrong with Binance's transfer, but upon examining the transaction, everything seemed fine. The USDT arrived in my wallet, but they disappeared almost instantly. It took me some time to realize that I had fallen victim to a hack. In fact, I even made another small USDT transaction, which I also lost.

It was only later that I understood I had fallen for a fake approval about a year ago.

One of the most common attacks in the DEFI world involves fake websites using fake approvals. Most of the interactions we engage in within DEFI require an approval step. This approval allows a contract to use tokens from YOUR WALLET for transactions. For instance, when you're on Uniswap and want to convert USDT to ETH, you need to allow the Uniswap contract to transfer your USDT. Given that Uniswap is a reputable open-source project, you trust it. However, the problem arises when sketchy DEFI projects ask for approval. Here's the key point: you can grant any wallet access to your tokens.

In my case, it's likely that about a year ago, I fell for a fake site that executed an approval for this developer's contract, ultimately draining my wallet of USDT. As soon as USDT was in my wallet, it instantly disappeared.

How can you avoid this? If you've approved something suspicious, how can you remove it? Do you remember approvals you gave 1-2 years ago?

There's a way to quickly check all of this:

https://etherscan.io/tokenapprovalchecker

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https://preview.redd.it/vmoihjvgvnkb1.png?1408&format=png&auto=webp&s=eb84a5e9d5e60f0efc3b51022b3d180c8eb79579

On the official Etherscan site, you can connect your wallet and review all approvals your tokens have. If you don't recognize a contract, you can revoke it.

This is my story to prevent more people from falling for such scams. Take care, everyone